Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency presented preliminary flood maps for Butler County to county, city, and state officials Wednesday afternoon. With the District 12 Levee still not accredited, the East Side of Poplar Bluff was shown as Zone AE, a special flood hazard area.
The Poplar Bluff Regional Business Airport was also shown as being caught in the floodway of both the Black and St. Francis rivers.
Most areas of the county, however, were shown to have an improved flood rating due to a lowering in Base Flood Elevation for the 100 year flood by 2 feet.
A FEMA Region VII hydraulic engineer in the risk analysis branch, along with contractor Hayden Edwards of Compass, introduced the preliminary maps. Data on elevation and topography was gathered by aerial LiDAR with an accuracy within plus or minus 9.2 centimeters with a 95% confidence interval, they said. LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth.
Hydrologist and Project Officer Rick Nusz of Region VII Rick Nusz added Butler County’s new map is one of many in a decades-long project started in 2003 to update the nation’s flood data. Wednesday’s meeting was the second presentation of preliminary maps, the first being in 2021. At the previous meeting, STAR II was FEMA’s contractor.
The purpose of both meetings was to solicit feedback on FEMA’s flood plain analysis and map building. As with the first iteration, FEMA was met with stiff opposition from most in attendance.
Drainage District 12 levee
The main item of contention was the East Side’s downgrade to a special hazard flood zone due to the lack of certification on the District 12 levee. The barrier is managed by the Drainage District 12 board, made up of the three members of the Butler County commission.
“We haven’t received everything, so as we sit here today, we’re simply saying is that we’ve proceeded with this map, on to a preliminary map and someday (an) effective (map), if we don’t receive it, which would show the levy as de-accredited,” Nusz warned.
He said, while the discharges for the Black River have been measured higher than before, the base flood elevation is down by 2 feet. Nusz said this fact should help with the freeboard aspect of the levee’s certification. Freeboard is the measurement of the height of the levee above the water surface level expected in a base flood.
Eastern Commissioner Don “Butch” Anderson said the levee was certified and inspected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Inspections are used for information purposes, but the Corps does not certify levees,” Nusz replied.
Matt Bain, deputy state director for the office of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, provided stiff resistance to FEMA’s conclusions and methodology. He maintained, if the Corps says the barrier is in good condition, FEMA ought to take that into consideration for the certification.
Nusz said, while the Corps’ inspections and assessment are a factor, Drainage District 12 still needs to get a professional engineer to take the structure through the Code of Federal Regulations 65.10 certification process.
The district hired Todd Sittig of Mathis and Associates in 2014 for this purpose. The initial submission was rejected, then Sittig re-submitted a partial package 10 years later, in September of this year.
“FEMA says, there’s a risk to flooding here because we don’t have the information that says, ‘This levee meets our requirements for certification,’” Nusz said.
Anderson said the drainage district is caught between contradicting claims of federal agencies.
“If the Corps says, ‘You guys have got plenty of freeboard,’ then you guys say, ‘No, you don’t,’ that puts us out on a limb,” he recounted.
Bain brought up an example from Crawford County in 2019 where FEMA acknowledged the presence of a de-commissioned railroad bed and kept a school district out of Zone X despite the barrier’s lack of any kind of certification.
“Even within Region VII, there (are) instances within the last six years where it’s not had to be a FEMA certified levee to lead to a more accurate hydrologic outcome on the maps,” he disputed.
Nusz and his branch manager, Bryan Murty, said they did not have any recollection or familiarity with the situation. Murty joined the branch in 2022.
“Sen. Hawley would be very interested in how we could come to a common sense solution,” Bain said and told the FEMA officials to re-examine the Crawford County case.
Nusz agreed to look into the example. According to the preliminary maps, however, a similar arrangement may already be in place, he indicated.
The East Side of Poplar Bluff, without the levee, would be located directly in the Black River’s regulatory floodway. The preliminary maps reflect the presence of the physical barrier by having the sector labeled as Zone AE as opposed to a floodway.
Without the certification, Nusz maintained the East Side would remain Zone AE. Sittig said he is in the process of addressing the issues pointed out by FEMA for the accreditation.
Nusz emphasized FEMA is available for conference calling or meetings to work on the certification requirements. Before the partial package by Sittig, neither the drainage district nor FEMA had sent any communication to each other since 2014.
“Y’all tell us what you want to do to fix this problem. Let’s fix it and be done with it,” Anderson stated. “We don’t want to be the cause of people on the East Side having to buy flood insurance.”
Nusz reiterated, “We simply can’t get past receiving our 65.10 information... There are parts of it that are not fully addressed.”
Bain stated the work with the Corps of Engineers and the priorities of the local leaders has been the integrity and safety of the levee over CFR 65.10 compliance.
“We still have more than two years to have the levee certified,” Nusz assured.
He informed the Corps can do a semi-quality risk assessment that can be another way of attaining certification, but the process requires the same issues to be addressed. FEMA remains the ultimate accrediting authority, he said.
Objections over modeling accuracy
Next, officials discussed the apparent confluence of the St. Francis and Black rivers’ flood plains in a 500-year flood event.
“The most those two rivers did was proceed about a half mile outside of their traditional banks,” Bain objected. “Those two rivers are not going to meet and that’s what makes everybody highly suspicious of the scientific quality of all of the hydrology... Can y’all understand why that really makes us question every part of the map?”
Smith and Company Engineer Billy Cobb said the floodway of the rivers, which would include the airport on the new maps, have never met in that way.
“It just seems like the modeling for that, on the floodway in particular, does not seem correct from an engineering perspective,” he asserted.
Cobb said, if the airport ends up in that zone, the permitting process for building would become nearly impossible.
On the subject of flood mapping in city limits, Bain said FEMA was asked to follow up on the presence and layout of underground drainage structures like culverts and stormwater drains at the 2021 meeting.
Poplar Bluff City Planner James Sisk indicated no such followup had occurred. Edwards showed several places on the preliminary maps where storm culverts were incorporated, but Nusz encouraged officials to input comments on the map viewer for additional drain locations.
“We use gauge data from the river itself,” he clarified.
Bain concluded with a rebuke of FEMA’s precision, “What an inaccurate map does is an inappropriate tax increase on the American citizens.”
Nusz reiterated officials have until Dec. 20 to input their comments into the map viewer. Following the incorporation of the comments, FEMA will hold public open houses in 2026 with a Letter of Final Determination issued in 2027 or 2028.
A draft of the preliminary maps may be viewed at https://arcg.is/05naer.
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